Every good story is about grief

And this time it's Bridgerton Season 2.

The Matriarchs

I just finished Bridgerton Season 2, streaming on Netflix, and could not have loved it more.

A little background: Bridgerton is based on a book series. Each book centers on one of the Bridgerton children. The first season was Daphne’s, the eldest Bridgerton daughter. The second season orbits around Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest son who has decided it’s time to find a wife (not a priority of his in the first season) and fulfill his viscount duties.

Even though Season 2 is primarily Anthony’s love story, that does not mean we are lacking for strong female leads. As a guesstimation, I would say the female : male character ratio in this show is something like 70 : 30. Patriarchs are noticeably absent from our star aristocratic families. Our point-of-view is most often from either the Bridgerton or Featherington women, occasionally the Queen, and, in this new season, the Sharma sisters.

I know—Season 1 had lots of sex, so not everyone will watch it. And neither would I recommend it to everyone! But hear me out. Both seasons are about more than sex—in the first season, the married sex was actually a key plot point in the narrative’s rising action—and the second season has only one sex scene that you can very easily skip, if you so choose.

To be honest, in season 1, I was first emotionally invested in the storyline of Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton. That’s what kept me coming back in Season 1 because I found Daphne and the Duke—the key love story and the relationship in which most of the *married* sex took place—ridiculous and annoying. The Duke’s melodrama and Daphne’s, well, everything about her, are almost indigestible.

But the familiar storyline of Colin and Penelope, in which two people are grand friends, but one has feelings for the other and the other doesn’t have eyes to see, is honestly a favorite of mine. Penelope is a wallflower (this is important for spoiler reasons) and Colin is an optimistic, kind young man, the friend that everyone likes. I found myself rooting for them, rolling my eyes at the Duke and Daphne, and enjoying all the other colorful supporting characters.

I would posit to you that you can skip Season 1, but you should watch Season 2. Why? There are several “matches” and character arcs that captured my heart this go-round. Obviously, there is the continued friendship between Penelope and Colin, which Penelope hopes will turn into something more. There is the exciting intrigue of Eloise’s infatuation with a printing apprentice—a man of lower class, *gasp*!—based on their radical political interests, which is a necessary element in a period soap (Sybil and Branson in Downton Abbey, anyone?).

And then, of course, there is the eldest Bridgerton Anthony, who, in the previous season, was simply a protective brother to Daphne by day and a Don Juan cavorting with opera singers by night. Anthony is caught in a love triangle with the Sharma sisters, a disgraced family who has re-entered London society after many years in India so that the younger sister, Edwina, can marry and save the family from financial destitution (a fact that only the elder daughter, Kate, is aware of).

Anthony, in a nuanced but albeit somewhat masculine trope, is detached from his true feelings because of the trauma of watching his father die, a grief he never acknowledged or processed as he took on the familial duties of viscount and kept the household running while his mother mourned. He has decided it’s his social season to find a wife, thereby fulfilling his final and most important viscount duty of marrying and bearing a male heir. He is approaching this search with his mind, not his heart. He can’t bear the thought that, if he were to marry for love and pre-maturely die as his father did, he would cause his wife as much pain as he witnessed in his widowed mother.

The Bridgerton family, however, are endearingly a family that came from a “love match” and is, therefore, pro-love matches for all of the children. Violet and her late husband were a love match, their lives together tragically cut short. Daphne found her love match with the Duke in Season 1. Edwina Sharma is also set on a love match. Even the Queen herself, deeply in love with King George III (the mad king) believes in love matches. And so, the drama ensues. Anthony courts Edwina, the Queen’s diamond debutante, because he believes she would be a good wife and viscountess, even as he fights his unavoidable attraction to and desire for Edwina’s sister Kate.

Anthony’s courtship takes center stage, but the characters and plot elements that affect it are just as important. We watch as Antony finally comes to term with his grief, a process that restores his bond with each of his family members. He says to his youngest brother, “We do not talk about him enough, do we?” as Violet listens from the hallway with shining eyes. The former viscount’s death and absence colors and shapes the Bridgerton family and their narrative arcs this season.

We also witness transformations in both Edwina and Kate, transformations that are admittedly and decidedly modern. Without spoiling it, let’s just say it’s got something to do with our contemporary virtue, “Be true to yourself.” In my opinion, this doesn’t make their transformations any less satisfying.

The Sharma sisters with their mother and sponsor

There is the tumultuous relationship between Penelope and Eloise, catalyzed by Eloise’s interest in the printer boy, Theo Sharp (aren’t their names as grand as their gowns?). Again, to say any more about this would spoil a major plot reveal at the end of Season 1. But this friendship gets no less attention than the romantic ones. I love a story with a dynamic female friendship. Anne Shirley & Diana Barry, Elizabeth Bennet & Charlotte Collins… add Penelope Featherington & Eloise Bridgerton to that list.

And, last but not least, there are the mothers. Dowager Viscountess Violet, Lady Mary, Lady Danbury, Lady Featherington, and Lady Cowper, to name a few. These matriarchs, while they often appear to treat their offspring as social puppets for advantageous matches, deeply love their children. Portia Featherington, a lady whose schemes we love to hate and whose hair continues to be done higher than should be possible, when accused of being cruel, utters a chillingly: “I am a mother.”

Lady Featherington with her daughter Prudence

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dukes and Duchesses, Bridgerton Season 2 is rollicking and scintillating, intriguing and surprising, heartwarming and gratifying. I can honestly say I enjoyed every bit of it.

So why do so many of our stories start with, include, or look back on death and grief? That’s a big question and I’m sure it has something to do with grief being one of the most potent and universal human experiences. I especially appreciate television that depicts grief well. By “well” I mean—it’s fair and accurate, and it doesn’t minimize, trivialize, or sentimentalize it.

In my estimation, as someone who knows what this grief is like, Bridgerton does it well. When Antony comes close to losing a great love again, Violet says to him, “Losing Edmund was the most difficult time of my life. And the pain that I felt… beyond description. But there is one thing that has given me at least some modicum of solace—knowing I would still choose the life I led with him each and every time.”

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Did you watch Bridgerton Season 2? Thoughts? Encouragements? Affirmations and validations? I’d love to hear it all!

If you want to watch Season 2, but haven’t seen Season 1, continue reading for a few Season 1 SPOILERS that will give you all the context you need to proceed.

The Sharma’s first visit to the Bridgerton’s country estate

1. The Queen’s Diamond: toward the beginning of each social season, the Queen names her “diamond,” the debutante who is, in her Majesty’s view, the most accomplished, excellent, beautiful and desirable bachelorette of them all. The diamond becomes the center of all of London society’s attention, and the recipient of all of the most eligible bachelors’ courtship.

2. Lady Whistledown: a notorious and mysterious gossip writer who publishes the secrets and intrigues of society, and who often butts heads with the Queen, which started with Whistledown’s critique of the Queen’s practice of choosing a “Diamond.” Both the Queen and Eloise Bridgerton are on a witch hunt to discover Whistledown’s true identity. Lady Whistledown is, in fact, Penelope Featherington, who is always an observant wallflower at balls and an eavesdropper on whispered rumors of scandal.

3. Scandal: the last thing anyone in society wants is scandal, which can bring ruin to your family by disqualifying you from advantageous alliances with other well-regarded and upstanding families through marriage. Or, perhaps, a scandal is exactly what you want so you can get what you need.